Creating our Team

Really, I should have started this blog a couple of months ago when the idea for this class started. So let me recap a bit.

I was invited to a meeting to discuss the possibility of "Greening" our school. Thought maybe we'd be planning to install another solar panel or two, maybe improve on our recycling program. We did talk about solar, and some exciting ideas for green building training, but the outcome of the meeting wasn't any grand plan for green retrofit of our historic building. It turned out quite different from what I expected.

One of the meeting participants extended the invitation to participate in an international urban youth conference in South Africa next August. My initial reaction, "Great, but how? I'm too busy to get a group of kids ready for that.Someone else is gonna have to do it." I'd just started a new semester of grad school, and began an independent study that was going to keep be on my toes. But the more I daydreamed about making that trip, the more I realized we could not let this opportunity get away. So I changed the focus of my independent study to include the pre-planning.

Fast-forward to today. I had the privilege of interviewing students with so much light and energy and excitement. We have eight bold, brave young women ready to take on this challenge. It's really a teacher's dream. I have the opportunity to teach a class on a subject I am passionate about, with a group of students who are excited, committed and ready for this journey. A course with a clear goal of developing students into experts to lead others in this "green revolution", and give them an opportunity to be effective, to have an impact, to do something real, now. How lucky am I?

I've created a general outline for the course, and started to get excited about preparing for it, but today it started to come alive in my head. I'm glad actually that I haven't done too much pre-planning. I think I have just enough to get us started. I can't wait for those discussions that will reveal where they are, what they know, what they want to know, what they want to do, that will shape the course.